


Neither timid nor tame

by tragicallydelicious



Category: Spartacus: Vengeance
Genre: Blood, Canonical Character Death, First Time, Love, M/M, Oral Sex, Romance, Self-Destruction, Sexual Slavery, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-13
Updated: 2012-04-13
Packaged: 2017-11-03 14:50:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/382531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tragicallydelicious/pseuds/tragicallydelicious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nasir saves Agron's life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Neither timid nor tame

The first time Agron sees Nasir, he thinks: he is beautiful.

He thinks: he is damaged and delicate, fragile and fierce, and I could love him.

Then he thinks: pity, he will never know.

\--

He decides to die the moment the light leaves Duro's eyes, ever-bright smile gone slack, vestigial signs of life draining from his face, his features, like something softly melting in the sun. The body Agron has spent countless nights beside, pressed against for warmth, curled around for comfort, goes still with a last, long shudder of finality, as if to speak words numb lips could no longer move to form. 

Going now, dear brother. I am finished.

I am free.

The scream that rips from Agron's throat goes unheard, his head too full of Duro's last spoken words to hear anything other than, save you. Saved you. Haunting him already, like each time he had left Duro sprawled on his back in this same, blood-soaked sand instead of offering him assistance will haunt him. Relentless, and for the rest of his life. Still, it is better than he deserves. So he decides to die.

He will not look for death, but he will not run from it. Not ever, and every Roman he cuts through will be a bleeding, pissing, screaming monument to Duro, every Roman who fails to kill _him_ a message from beyond the grave, whispered in his ear in beloved mother tongue. 

One more.

Kill one more.

Just one more, and you can join me.

The problem, Agron knows but refuses to acknowledge, is that there will always be one more, and he may just keep dying forever.

\--

He plunges his sword into the Roman's guts and relishes the sensations that come along with it.

Subtle, futile resistance of clothing, snap of tearing skin. Soft, liquid slide through organs until his blade is stopped by spine. He cuts the next one across the throat and makes no attempt to avoid the spray, tasting foul blood upon his lips, swiping it away absently. He impales another in the heart – _treacherous fucking organ_. Every man he kills this day shares the face of the one who cut down his brother, robbing Agron of all he ever loved, all he ever had.

One Roman bears a particularly strong resemblance, at least in Agron's half-mad, sanguine vision. So when the man attempts to stumble away, as if he could somehow escape the nightmare of violence and carnage the rebels have visited upon the road outside Capua, Agron is personally offended. 

He lunges, and the man's skull is like a bird's egg between his hands.

He smashes it against the closest available hard surface, breaking it open, spilling insides. Red, red blood and watery, pinkish-gray brain matter. He feels the vibrating, shattering of teeth, sees white fragments of skull like broken seashell and he laughs and does it again, and again, and again. Someone, an ally, says something to him, a warning tone, but it barely registers. Only the Bringer of Rain speaking his name like a command calls Agron back from where he has briefly gone.

That night, he lies on his side in the dirt, hugging knees, his sword tightly gripped in one hand, recalling with torturous accuracy two young boys, two small bodies, in a place so far from here. Sharing a blanket and telling each other stories to ward off the dark and terror.

“The German has lost his shit,” he hears someone say, a short distance from him. “His brain is addled. It would be mercy to kill him while he sleeps, spare him some pain. Spare _us_ more trouble.”

“Agron is among our strongest warriors,” a woman's voice replies, the smallest of pauses before she amends, “Spartacus trusts him, as do I.” The man mutters something additional, but the woman – Mira, the former house slave – does not speak again, giving final answer and ending discussion with her silence.

Agron considers the benefits of killing the other rebel. He wonders if Spartacus would see fit to help him from fucking world then. Only his brother's voice – quieter now; Agron is already starting to forget exactly what it sounded like – keeps him still, fingers curled around sword hilt so hard they tremble.

One more.

Eventually, fantasies of murdering the man who had sold he and Duro to Batiatus in the first place tamp down self-destructive thoughts, allow him to close his eyes. Trebius. The name is like a curse.

He wonders, if he can do that, will he find some kind of peace?

Restless sleep grabs him long before answer is reached.

\--

Agron cannot look at Crixus – the Champion, the Gaul – without wanting to hurt him, to be hurt _by_ him. To rail against him in some inexplicable, impossible way that would truly convey his complicated feelings toward the man. The hatred he has for him, the empathy, the bitter envy.

He cannot look at Crixus and not remember how the man had so easily overpowered Duro in the ludus, bearing him down into the sand, over and over, as if to shatter him like statuary.

The way he had stood between Agron and his target, stealing his only shot at vengeance.

Agron cannot look at Crixus.

Because the love the man carries for Naevia is like a torch.

So blindingly brilliant that it hurts, mocking Agron, reminding him of all he has lost.

Of everything he never had.

\--

When they liberate the villa, Agron takes notice of the boy immediately.

He has a hard time imagining how anyone could not.

The slave is small, sweetly arranged and better maintained than many of the others wearing collars. A body slave, with hair the color of ravens' wings and liquid brown eyes, too wide and wise in his achingly youthful face. And while he stands in line with the others, meek and modest, he never lowers those eyes to floor, instead watching everyone, taking in everything as the world as he knows it is torn apart.

It must be overwhelming, Agron thinks. He and his brothers – not by birth, but by circumstance, united by brand – are accustomed to death. In a way, it is more natural to them than life. But for these... 

The sight of it, the unbearable stench, must be like hell.

Yet there is a defiance in the slave that Agron recognizes, a wildness, burning away beneath the top layer of his skin, threatening to consume him, or whosoever is ill-fated and stupid enough to unleash it. It makes itself known in the barbed words he chooses, his voice a soft hiss when he replies to the rebels' questions. He says his name is _Tiberius_ – fuck the gods.

He looks at Spartacus like he wants to kill him, even after he tries and fails.

He is damaged and delicate, fragile and fierce, Agron thinks, in passing. 

He could love him, if only he remembered how.

\--

It turns out he does not need to remember. It comes back to him naturally as, without quite meaning to, he finds himself watching Tiberius – _Nasir_ , all the time.

He watches him learn how to use a sword. Spartacus oversees his training in the beginning. He leaves himself open when he attacks, but however many times Spartacus hits him with the flat of his blade, he does not correct the behavior. Agron thinks he will probably die in his first real battle.

He watches Nasir talk to the other freed house slaves, moving among them comfortably, the defenses he shores up around those once owned by Batiatus coming down. He smiles easily, speaks in dulcet tones, then snaps shut again the moment someone he does not know approaches.

He is testing them, Agron realizes. Assessing potential threats, identifying those who might seek to supplant his former master and giving them wide berth. Most of the gladiators would rather see him dead than bother with him, Agron knows, but does not say. He does not say much of anything, in fact, after their first, brief exchange, but the revelation that they have both lost brothers had sparked something in Agron, the chasm left when Duro died filling up with fire. To kill now seems a hollow gesture, one that had so recently given him the closest thing to pleasure he believed he would ever experience again.

Not enough anymore. Not enough to avenge Duro, when people like Nasir still wear collars, and the Republic continues to piss on them all.

One more, he thinks, and he means the whole of Rome. 

\--

They share a secret, and the universe explodes.

“I will not fucking die for this,” Agron says, more for himself than anyone else, and he feels like a child. 

A petulant, Roman child who has never heard the word “no,” or been told there is nothing more to eat, or been put in chains and thrown on the back of a cart. Storming off with words meant to injure, to sting like he has just been stung, first by Nasir's betrayal, second by Spartacus' fist.

It is only when he stops to turn, finding himself unexpectedly alone with Nasir in one of the house's wide, stone corridors, that he realizes the implications of those words: I will not fucking die.

“Is there no one you care about?” Nasir asks him. “No one you would risk all for?”

“There was,” Agron says, “my brother.” He suddenly feels short of breath.

His chest is rising and falling too quickly, and Nasir is closing the remaining distance between them, looking him in the face, a hand coming up to rest on shoulder. “And why would you risk all for him?”

“Because.” Agron swallows with difficulty. His throat feels constricted, like choking on thick smoke. “Because to live without him means nothing.”

“Then you are dead already, so what does it matter?” The challenge in Nasir's voice makes Agron's pulse quicken like his breath, heart and lungs working in frantic tandem just to keep him upright. He hears his blood in his ears along with Duro's distant voice. _Say something, you idiot._

“And what of you, little man?” Agron eventually asks, using the term some of the others have coined for Nasir, causing him to stiffen, narrow his eyes to a glare, and fuck the _gods_ – it does not help. “For whom do you live?”

“I have been dead as long as I can remember,” Nasir says, or sighs, and Agron's hands are clenched tightly at his sides, because he wants so badly to take hold of that slim, tempting waist, to press his thumbs into the dip above Nasir's hipbones.

“Pity,” he exhales.

“What would you have me do?” Nasir's voice is soft, but not weak. Never weak.

“I would not lose sight of you,” Agron confesses. It hurts to even think about. “Come with me to Vesuvius.” Please, _please_ , come with me, do not leave me, do not _die_...

“You do not command me,” Nasir says. “No man or woman does.” A small revelation of his own. His dark eyes seem to lose focus, just briefly, as he fully considers his statement.

They stand so close now, closer than they have ever been. Agron could bow down, if he wanted, and touch his forehead to Nasir's, just rest it there, like he had sometimes done with Duro, closing his eyes. He longs to experience that light but meaningful contact again, that feeling of mutual respect and trust. If Nasir goes to the mines, this could be his only chance. The odds of him, any of them, surviving the mission are painfully, unimaginably low.

“No,” says Agron, “they do not.”

“I will consider this,” Nasir says, and it is clear from his tone, the subtle way he shifts even closer, that he means more than just Agron's suggestion that he stay.

\--

He goes with Crixus to the mines.

Of _course_ he does.

\--

This is your brother, Agron's mother had said, when she placed Duro in his arms for the first time.

He had not been old enough to understand, so he took her words to mean: this is yours.

The only thing he ever had.

Memories of childhood are shadowed now, coming back in small, infrequent bursts, requiring too much effort to hold, and too little reward, like half-remembered dreams. 

A blazing field, a village destroyed. A mother and father gone too soon, and two boys left to fend for themselves. Keeping Duro alive was the most important thing in the world. They would be soldiers, when Rome came for them, they would fight, and it would all be over so fast. They would make shit house slaves, too savage and unkempt to be body slaves, but with training might be aimed at higher station. That fucking arena. It was always more suited to Agron. Duro had been a gentle child, and so funny. He could always make Agron smile.

“The gods gave you to me,” Agron says, staring across the deep green grass, gray sky above casting faces and bodies into shadowed relief. Duro's hand finds his and their fingers knot together tightly, reflexively, as they have done hundreds of times before, thousands. “Rome took you away.”

“And you make Rome pay,” Duro says, and his voice is not quite right in his mouth, like some stranger is speaking through him. “The gods replace me in thoughts. A new face holds you captive.”

“You are _always_ in my thoughts,” Agron corrects him. He is in his thoughts right now, after all. A projection of guilt, of doubt. He had been so certain of his purpose. And now...

“Rome will take him, too. The mines are impossible to escape. You know the stories. Had Batiatus not intervened, we might have ended up there ourselves.”

“You might still be alive if we had.”

“And you would still be a slave.”

“I suppose.”

“Idiot.” Duro laughs, and that – _that_ at least sounds like him. “If you truly wished to die, you would have thrown yourself over precipice back at the ludus, soon as I went. But you never even considered it, did you?” Duro starts to hum, then chant, low and tuneless, a song from their childhood. Agron does not recall the source of it, or the exact order of words, but the rough sketch of melody and the language itself are a comfort.

When he opens his eyes, he finds himself gazing at a wall of stone opposite. The silence that surrounds him tells better than anything that Spartacus and the others have yet to return. It has been too long already.

Idiot.

He bites his lower lip, hard enough to taste the bright, metallic flavor of his own blood, then rises to organize a search party.

\--

The first time he kisses Nasir is not quite accidental, but incidental. He does not bow to kiss the crown of Nasir's head where hair parts, or one of his high, fine cheekbones, like one might kiss a favored companion, but presses his lips to the man's mouth, flush and closed. Chaste. A kiss that says plainly that this is how he feels.

And maybe the man will appreciate this concession, this compromise made between Agron's brain and his stupid, broken heart.

An unspoken oath: I am giving you this, all I have left, to do with as you will.

And maybe, just maybe, he will smile at Agron through his pain, and Agron will smile back, and neither of them will have to walk this path alone. For a while, at least, for however long they have left, they can be together in this place, listing under the weight of all they have sacrificed and everyone who would sacrifice _them_ , holding each other upright, just a little farther, a little longer.

It does not matter if Nasir loves him back or not; Agron would never force his attentions where they were not desired. All that matters is that he loves Nasir, wholly and completely, and he will die loving him, and Nasir will die knowing that he was loved.

\--

They kiss as often as possible after that.

It quickly becomes Agron's favorite thing to do, replacing all thoughts of blood and vengeance with other, more pleasant mental images. Visions of Duro's mouth going slack become muted, as if seen through a thick haze of fog. The only thing that haunts his waking hours now is the sense-memory of Nasir's lips against his, the shock of pleasure felt when he pushes just the tip of his tongue into Agron's mouth.

The ache he experiences when Nasir goes limp in his arms, his hands locked behind Agron's neck, bearing down with all his weight as if he could topple him physically the way he has emotionally. Like his heart might explode, shattering his ribcage, drowning him in blood, killing him dead at long last.

They share the same bed, but they do not fuck, or even come close, and neither of them seems to mind. 

For Agron, based on the few, frantic instances he can actually recall, distant, as if they had happened to someone else, sex is a means to an end, and in this case, that end is one he would be comfortable never reaching, because this – what they have now, is better. They talk and touch and sometimes do both at once, late into the night or the early hours of the morning when the sky is pale violet, or until Nasir gets tired and lapses into silence, his mouth finding Agron's and working against it slowly, then moving down, following the line of his jaw, settling in the curve where neck meets shoulder.

He likes to draw the edges of Agron's scars with his lips, mapping out planes of sorrow, but never asking about their origins. Sometimes Agron tells him anyway, when Nasir's tongue lingers, begging to question. Here is where Crixus once hit me so hard with a wooden sword that I bled for four hours. Here is where a rival gladiator nearly struck home with his mace. Here is where Duro swung his sword too widely in practice and nearly killed me and he felt so guilty after that all I could do was laugh.

The scar next to his heart is more personal; he has carried it since long before setting foot in the ludus. He whispers its source against Nasir's ear one night and Nasir rolls on top of him immediately, kissing him, soft and warm, then wet and hot, long hair falling around their faces like a veil.

“You still live,” he says against Agron's lips, like he needs reassurance after what he has just heard.

“Yes,” Agron replies, and believes it for the first time in months. His fingertips find the edge of Nasir's worst scar – still a wound, really – and hover beside it, afraid to actually touch the place that makes Nasir clutch his side and wince when he thinks no one sees. “As are you.”

Nasir shifts so that his cheek rests on Agron's chest, and Agron moves his free hand to push the black, black hair from his face. He loves the texture of it, how easily it slips between his fingers when he combs them through. He twists and knots it absently but it always pulls instantly free.

“My dominus never fucked me,” Nasir says, and Agron lets his hand drop slowly, settling on the back of Nasir's neck. “He let others do it, if it pleased them. All his honored guests. I lost count of the men. And he made me fuck him, when his mood was dark, and I always had to prepare him...”

Agron could kill a thousand Romans, a million, for each time, he thinks. But it would mean nothing.

“I am happy just to be with you,” he whispers, and it means everything.

\--

It is not enough that he die for Duro anymore, nor that he has finally started to live again.

Nasir wears his cloak without asking permission.

Crixus (who Agron still hates) calls Nasir his boy, and Spartacus looks at Agron like he hardly recognizes him, and it is no longer a burden, but a blessing to continue breathing.

He does not know what it will take to honor Duro's memory now, but it is not dying, or killing, or breathing, so he looks for other things. Freeing the Germanic slaves at Neopolis is a start.

“Your people lift spirits,” Nasir says. Then, later, after they have feasted and fallen to bed, hearts and heads and stomachs beyond sated, “The gods truly favor you.”

They must.

\--

The weeks spent on Vesuvius are the most difficult of Agron's new life, and not just because he is forced via necessity to spend large amounts of time separated from Nasir. For their small band to hope to survive, everyone must be utilized effectively, and it falls first to Spartacus to give command, then to the gladiators below him to see that those commands are followed.

It is almost like slavery, Agron thinks, this military mindset. The weak doing the will of the strong. Only everyone is here by choice, and they mostly accept their assigned roles, whether standing guard along the mountain pass, foraging for what little sustenance the land provides, sharpening weapons, or simply waiting.

Mostly. There is Nemetes, who speaks in hushed, conspiratorial tones with other German tribesmen, Lugo and Saxa, two strong fighters, among them. Agron watches them closely, when he can afford it, leaving him little time to seek out Nasir. He should have done that more when he had the chance. Now, Nasir is mostly relegated to watch, and Agron stays close to Crixus, with whom he has finally reached understanding thanks to Spartacus' intervention and the gentle prodding of Nasir and Naevia, and Gannicus, less familiar but trusted now, liked.

And Spartacus himself, whose mind is so fraught, thoughts so scattered that he can no longer immediately defend against the verbal attacks some would launch – he has doomed them all – so Agron makes certain he is there, _right_ there, to do it for him, every time.

The disputants may speak truth, but Agron would prefer a thousand deaths here, having known his lover's touch and the verity of bonds felt between those without shared blood, to a single, inglorious death in the arena, cheered to final sleep by people who despised him.

If the gods had given him Duro, than truly Spartacus had given him Nasir. They would never have come together without interference of the man, his insistence that Nasir be trained in combat, his endless patience with Agron through his many fits and starts.

For that, and so much more, Agron owes him everything. So when on one, rare occasion they have to themselves in this place, Nasir asks him if he would ever consider turning from Spartacus' cause, Agron does not have to think before answering. There is only one possible answer.

“Nor will I,” Nasir says in response, and Agron slings an arm around his beloved's shoulders, pulling him close, breathing deeply the scent of his hair, his skin. Nasir teases, “Not even if you fall before me.”

“I will not fall,” Agron says, and kisses Nasir's left temple. When they pull apart again, Nasir catches Agron's hand, brings it to his own lips.

“Not while I stand.” His smile is the only bright thing left.

More than enough to get Agron through the night.

\--

The sky breaks while they still chant Spartacus' name.

Agron drinks rainwater from Nasir's tongue, sucks it greedily from his lips, hands roaming over every inch of him he can reach. The thin fabric that normally hangs loose on him is soon soaking, stuck to Nasir, as Agron's own sparse clothing clings to him.

Nasir lifts his hands to Agron's chest, tracing the lines of his musculature with his fingers, drawing forth a low sound from his mouth, part growl, part moan. When they break apart, Agron's eyes roam Nasir's face, frenetic, as if searching for something. Consent, perhaps. Permission.

“We live.”

“Yes.”

“I want you.” Nasir blinks rain out of his eyes, heavy drops caught in his eyelashes.

“You have me,” Agron says.

Nasir rises onto his toes, presses lips to Agron's ear.

“I would have you alone,” he whispers, and the admission sends a shiver curling down Agron's spine. Now, he _does_ growl, and finds Nasir's lips again. The pleasure of it shocks through him, but it is not enough, not for now.

Not anymore. “Our victory robs you of words,” Nasir laughs. 

Their victory.

Fuck _everything_.

“I love you,” Agron says, and sees the smile immediately leave Nasir's face, mouth half-opened to speak, then closed again. He nods, once, and pulls Agron's face down to kiss him hard.

“Seek me out, when duties are complete,” he commands, as if he needs to, before stepping back, disappearing into the crowd of former slaves, now warriors, moving with renewed purpose. Hurrying to secure perimeters, stripping weapons, shields, bits of armor, anything useful from Roman corpses. 

Collecting the bodies of their own honored dead.

Their usual place is unsuitable, too stained with blood and the smell of Roman sweat – and it is not really _theirs_ anymore, either, if it ever had been. “Theirs” is wherever they are, so they find a room near the back of the temple, not far from where they had so recently (so long ago) escaped through tunnels into the forest, hundreds of hostile swords at their backs, fleeing along the path to Vesuvius. The mountain itself had never held much significance for Agron, other than to serve as protection against attack from behind. Now, though, it is the place where free men and women had first conceived glory.

The place where they had become as gods. Where he and Nasir had held each other amidst the cold and terror, amazed and grateful every second to find they were still alive.

Agron imagines his life as it has played out over the past several months, envisions a map plotted and marked with deep red scratches every place Nasir has touched it. Here is where the collar was torn from his neck.

Here is where he was nearly taken from me. Here is where I found him.

And further back, here is where I was bought and sold. Here is where I died. Here is where I lived.

Nasir shoves him bodily against the wall, moves in to wrap his arms around Agron's neck, tilting his face back at the same time as Agron bows his down. Nasir's lips are pliant, willing as always, but this kiss is anything but urgent. It is exploratory, slow and deep, and it steals the air from Agron's lungs. He savors Nasir's mouth, commits every aspect of it to memory, along with the way Nasir's throat hitches when he pulls Agron against him even harder.

He could kiss him all night, Agron thinks, even now, with his cock growing cautiously hard, his breath coming in gasps between kisses. But Nasir's hand is already moving, feather-touch of fingertips ghosting across his chest, barest application of pressure over his abdomen. He works the fabric of Agron's subligaculum loose with casual expertise. “I like to see you unravel,” he says, his voice low and faintly ragged, lust and exhaustion deepening it, blowing his pupils wide, adding a kind of lazy intensity to the circular motion of his hand. “I would have you inside me.”

His fingers wrap around the base of Agron's cock, splay gently over his tightening balls, and Agron is overcome, as he has been from the beginning. From the very first time he laid eyes on Nasir. He reverses their positions easily, uses the wall to hitch Nasir up a bit higher, kneeing his thighs apart just enough to slot himself between them. He finds Nasir's mouth again, coaxes it open, and their tongues meet in passionate conflict, before Agron lowers his head to lick along Nasir's jaw, down the side of his neck, inspiring small, throaty groans of approval.

Nasir pushes Agron's cloak back over his shoulders, palming over his biceps, down his bare sides. Then, he bears them both down to the ground where cloak becomes blanket, providing some small measure of protection against unforgiving floor. They undress each other with practiced efficiency, then resume touching, alternating between teasing and deeper, more intimate caresses.

This, at least, is familiar territory. Still, it has been awhile, since before Vesuvius, and there is some relearning involved, things to be remembered and cherished. Like how Nasir likes it when Agron mouths across the flat plane of his stomach, pushing gentle kisses under his ribcage. The way he scratches Agron's back, short, sharp fingernails raking up and down, digging in when Agron bites him, just hard enough to leave the slightest indentation of teeth.

How he sighs when Agron takes the swollen head of his cock between his lips, rubs his tongue along the underside, then swallows him.

“Fuck the gods,” Nasir gasps, employing Agron's favored idiom, and Agron moans around him. He has _missed_ the taste of him, he has known but only now truly realized. The soft slide of his skin, the faintly bitter spice of pre-come. He replaces Nasir's cock with his own fingers, just briefly, slicking them with spit before spreading Nasir's legs a little wider.

Nasir's back arches, and he is muttering something Agron does not quite understand, cannot quite hear with Nasir's thighs pressed tight to the sides of his face. He loses track of the moments that pass like this, his lover beneath him, clawing up the dirt, before Nasir drags him up by his hair until they are face to face again. He attacks Agron's mouth, bites at his lips, then brings his own hand up, licking a wet stripe across his palm before pushing it between them, seizing Agron's cock once more. Agron forgets how to breathe, working his fingers deeper into Nasir, feeling him tense and relax until he is _pushing_ back against him, and – “Go on, then.” It is all the invitation Agron needs.

He withdraws fingers, braces himself with one hand, wraps the other around Nasir's as he guides him against his entrance.

And it is so good.

So good. Nasir hisses and Agron moans, and they both stop short, catching their breath, Agron's forehead pressed to Nasir's, chest heaving. Nasir finds his waist after a moment, coaxing him forward. Agron slides his free hand under Nasir's ass, adjusting their angle, fighting against friction, determined to bury himself in that tight sleeve of muscle and membrane, and when he does, it feels amazing.

Amazing, and almost too big, all-consuming. He struggles to collect his thoughts from where they have gone flying in a million different directions. Nasir kisses him on the lips, once, quickly, grounding him, and they finally, mercifully settle on a comfortable rhythm. Hips snap back, push forward, and Nasir goes mostly quiet save for his breathing, legs wrapped securely around Agron's waist, heel pressed into the small of his back. His hands card through Agron's short hair, and all the hurt and fatigue of the day seems to melt off, channeled through Nasir's body before dissolving into the earth, disappearing completely.

Agron could happily go on like this forever, just looking at Nasir's face, his eyelashes dark smudges above his cheekbones. But Nasir nudges him off after awhile, encourages him to roll over onto his back. They lose contact for a few, agonizing seconds, before Nasir climbs on top of him, mounting him like a sleek, glossy-haired animal.

He lowers himself onto Agron's cock, palms flat on his chest, and Agron grips his thighs, assisting the slow, sensual roll of hips that seems to last for ages, until eventually Nasir's movements go uneven, urgent, quickening, pulling them both spiraling, uncoiling, staggering toward inevitable end.

Agron wastes no time, wraps one hand tight around Nasir's cock, thumbing over the slit, thrusting up and up to meet Nasir's shallow gyrations until he stutters, stops, coming hard into Agron's hand, onto his abdomen, fingers moving down to slide through his own release, spreading it over Agron's skin like he would mark his territory. Agron's own hand joins him, opposite arm slung tight around Nasir's midsection, pulling out just enough to re-slick himself with Nasir's come before pushing back in all at once.

They sit upright now, Nasir straddling Agron's waist, gravity aiding them where Nasir has lost the ability to move on his own, wilted and shaking while Agron fucks him dutifully to the end of his orgasm. They rock together, slow, fast, slow, until Agron joins him there, his own release torn from him, clawing out his insides. His face is in the hollow of Nasir's throat, Nasir's hair is in his mouth, and he finishes with a choked-off sob, repeating his lover's name like a prayer.

When the aftershocks die down, allowing them to separate enough to look each other in eyes once more, the first thing they do is laugh, then kiss again, and again, Nasir's arms around Agron's shoulders, Agron's hands in Nasir's hair, pulling it forward across both of their faces.

“Agron,” Nasir starts, “I –” Two luminous, joyous voices interrupt them.

One unmistakably belongs to Gannicus, while the other is female, and speaks glibly in Agron's own language, but Agron only catches a glimpse of pale gold before replacing his face in Nasir's hair, guarding his expression as Nasir quickly pulls Agron's cloak around their lower halves.

“I – I mean, we – apologies,” Gannicus stammers through his own low laughter, stopped in the doorway with his companion, “we did not realize...”

“A moment, please,” Agron forces out through his teeth.

“Leave,” Nasir says at the same time, turning his own face back into Agron's neck, rubbing his nose against his ear unashamedly, like they are still the only two people in the room.

“Of course,” Gannicus returns, flurry of footsteps and more too-loud words – the rebels must have discovered more of the Romans' wine – carrying him and his woman back down the corridor from which they had come. Agron shakes his head, grins at Nasir.

“Shall we join the celebration?” he asks.

“Perhaps,” Nasir replies, “in due time.”

Due time turns into two hours, followed by several more.

By the time they reunite with the others, the sun is risen.

\--

A long time later, Agron looks at Nasir, walking close to the front of their loose formation.

Hundreds of free men, moving across the land. An army, or nearly so.

Nasir's hair is shorter now, frames his face in gentle waves that fall just past the nape of his neck. A few weeks earlier, he had cut it with his own blade, declaring the plaits he had worn for years no longer sufficient to stop it blowing across his eyes when he fights. Agron had watched the long, dark strands fall to the ground, shortly scattered by the wind, like fragments of an old life. Gone but not forgotten.

He is beautiful, Agron thinks, with all his brand new scars.

He is perfect and strong and I am his.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Neither Timid Nor Tame](https://archiveofourown.org/works/658813) by [Jinxy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinxy/pseuds/Jinxy)




End file.
